Featuring tropical monsoon climate, a high density of rivers and streams that are proportionally dispersed and comparatively sloping terrains Vietnam has great potential for the development of small and medium-range hydropower plants. Effective exploitation of this latent potential will not only create people extra income and meet the demand for energy in particular areas but also relieve the state energy deficiency.

A tremendous opportunity for development

The Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) has made constant efforts to build big hydropower plants such as Son La, Ban Ve and Dai Ninh in the past couples of years. A number of businesses inside and outside of the power sector have taken bold steps to invest in small and medium-range hydropower plants. Latest figures presented by Nguyen Minh Viet, MA, from the Institute for Hydropower and Renewable Energy at the recent Enerexpo Vietnam 2010 exhibition showed that small and medium  size hydropower plants currently represent 40 percent of system’ total production capacity. Vietnam has completed the planning of around 800 small and medium size hydropower plant projects, of them more than 200 plants have been or will soon be put into operation.

Unlike big hydropower plants, small hydropower plants are mostly built with owner’s capital or with loans taken from individuals and private businesses. Therefore, the time for implementing the projects is often shorter than that of projects getting realized with capital taken from the state budget. Besides, usually small hydropower plants do not need big water reservoir for moderation purposes. With a simple exploitation scheme and not very complex technology and equipment domestic companies are in a position to carry out most small hydropower projects to make effective use of available potential.

Vietnam has completed the planning of around 800 small and medium size hydropower plant projects, of them more than 200 plants have been or will soon be put into operation.

Though a majority of small hydropower plants are controlled by local governments, they are considered to be highly exploitable and compatible to Vietnam’s socioeconomic development and the government energy development plans. Therefore, this field has enjoyed particular attention as well big investments in some recent years. Reality shows that small and medium-range hydropower plants are developing robustly in the number and the quality of projects.

Nevertheless, industry specialists say that small hydropower plants are likely to gather momentum for development in the next five to ten years. Currently, for the potential to be effectively exploited to serve people, particularly those in highland areas a lot of problems need to be resolved in a timely manner.

Temporality delayed projects reach a high level

Up to 61 percent of small hydropower plants have halted operations temporarily. The figure was made public in the recent Enerexpo Vietnam 2010 conference. In the face of tremendous hydropower potential Vietnam could make use of the potential at quite a humble level serving highland people only. Total capacity of existing plants is about three percent of the actual potential only and they run at about 50-70 percent of the design capacity.

The researcher circle has attributed small hydropower plants’ low performance to poor equipment quality, particularly that at under 100KW plants. Frequent water shortages in the dry season also badly affect hydropower plant operations. It is then urgent to introduce a viable management model that could bring forth the responsibility of relevant stakeholders to ensure the plant sustained operations.

A low-cost energy source with active contributions to socioeconomic development in rural and highland areas, small hydropower projects requires particular attention from the State and the Government for effective exploitation. In the coming period, whether small and medium size hydropower is in a position to become an appealing market for domestic and foreign investors partly depends on the state investment encouragement policies.

By Hung Linh